Water Crash and Cannibal California

California has a year of water left, says NASA, at current usage rates. The rationing, price-hikes, price-gouging, ruination of livelihoods, businesses and economies begins now! Get there early for a front seat: it’s collapse, everyone. That’s the starting bell! Don’t miss a second of the carnage.

Yes, California, a desert forced to grow food for the entire country by plundering the wealth of its reservoirs and using them up in just decades; California and its shining jewel Los Angeles, dusty city in the desert valley, brought to life by stolen water from the Owens Valley decades ago – is now ready to begin its final act. It’s collapse, everyone! And it starts when an actual necessary ingredient for life – no! Not iPods – but water! declines inexorably.

The satellite imaging, combined with the withering reservoirs is telling everyone that the jig is up. At current rates of use, California has a year of water left.

But what are current rates for? Watering lawns? No, not really.

Watering Cows.

Take this report from the generally “Pro-GMO-Science” Alternet – even they can’t hide it:

“According to a 2012 report by the Pacific Institute, only 4% of California’s water is used by individuals. An astounding 93% of California’s water goes to agriculture; and most of that 93% is misused or wasted”

Drive down I­nterstate 5 in the middle of summer in 100-plus-degree weather and you will see huge sprinklers spraying water in the middle of the day and fields being flooded­­­ in the process, losing huge amounts of water to evaporation. Very few crops and very little acreage is watered with drip irrigation in California compared to other arid regions of the world.”

California agriculture also concentrates on growing the thirstiest foods­­­ derived from animals, mainly beef, dairy and eggs. One pound of animal protein requires 100 times more water than producing one pound of grain protein. Producing one pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water, compared to 100 gallons for a pound of wheat.”

Humans drink less than one gallon of water per day”

A cow drinks 23 gallons per day—and we have 5.5 million of them.” Read the rest.

Get it? That’s not too subtle for you, is it? Hey, that’s why I became a vegetarian 24 years ago: water and land use in California. Seriously. Me, yours truly. These were the arguments that convinced me to not eat giant, stupid, water-sucking, flatulent, river-polluting ungulates. I know, call me crazy! Call me un-American! But I gave up COWS. Because cows suck up most of California’s water.

Cows, pigs and the rest of the factory farm. All over So. Cal, up and down route 5 going in and out of LA.

How’s this possible?

ONE MORE TIME for those of you who just came in:

Cows guzzle around 2,000 gallons of water – and eat up to 20 pounds of grain and feed – per ONE POUND of edible beef flesh.

And so much of the FEED that goes to satisfy these unhappy heifers is the Monsanto-land garbage from the Ogallala-fed states. Or, it’s alfalfa grown in the California desert! So, it’s a double suck of water.

Let the Games Begin!

First thing – rationing. They’re doing it in Brazil! Another beef-crazy country. Sao Paolo is, like Los Angeles and San Diego, in a non-stop drought. And they’re cutting water services drastically. But will industry have to pay the piper?

You can bet that rationing will begin – and target the consumer first! Yes, private residences and individuals in small neighborhoods will be fined, fined, fined! Neighbors will turn on neighbors! Local businesses will die. The cost of running a shop will skyrocket due to water price gouging. But big cattle industry? Oh… not so fast!

Now comes the fight: the cattle industry doesn’t care about your water. They don’t care about tomorrow. Like oil companies and war machines, they just care about sales. And they’ll bend every worn-out Americana cliché to do it. You’ll see an offensive push back against people who suggest that factory farming should LEAVE California – same as they did to OPRAH WINFREY when she brought up the issue in the 1990s. They almost wrecked her – and she’s NEVER talked about it again.

And if we’re not getting our energy from nuclear, then I guess it’ll have to come from all of that free Fracked Oil they’re pulling out of Inglewood!

But wait, not so fast!

Richard Heinberg, of the Post Carbon Institute, bought and examined data from thousands of drilled wells and did a hard, sane data analysis. He says frack oil peaks in 2016; he’s not being hyperbolic – he’s just damned concerned. That is – we’re not gonna have that, either. Read it.

So, what’s the message? What’s the “take-away?” The lesson and moral of the story?

I guess it’s this: Exodus. Collapse. And…

Soylent California, if they’re not extremely careful! And they won’t be. We never are, are we?

Liam Scheff is author of Official Stories, a reverse textbook to all the fibs you were taught in school; his current project and next book is “The Oil Alarm” all about the collapse we’re just beginning to soak up, coast to coast.

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One Comment

Great post! I’ve been hearing about this scenario threatening to occur for years. It sure looks and sounds like things are about to get exponentially interesting with California and water. What’s “funny” is how “uncool” it is to suggest such large-scale cultural/social responsibility by eating lower on the food chain.

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